The Enemy of My Enemy
by AngmarianSoul
Summary: Richard and Cara face a new foe. But do they really understand just what that means?
1. Chapter 1

Not canon, not entirely "realistic". Hell, I probably got some stuff wrong. But this was a quick, fun thing I jotted down one day, and it includes one of my OCs. And yes, I watch the show religiously

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**Seeker Fic**

'Remember when you were captured by the Mord Sith and subjected to-'  
'-to torture the likes of which I've never dreamed of?' Richard interrupted Cara. He smiled a bit in spite of the memory. 'Yeah. I remember. Why?' He stepped up behind her.  
Cara glared coldly at the pot of stew boiling over the open flame as she squatted before it. 'Well, that's what eating this meal will be like.' She pivoted on her heel with perfect balance and looked up at him. 'I told you, I'm not a cook.'  
'That's all right.' Richard walked away a few steps, taking in their surroundings. It was dark in the forest but morning was arriving. They were getting ready to eat breakfast and head out for the day. 'Kahlan and Zedd should be back any minute with mushrooms or berries.'  
Cara watched him a minute longer then rolled her eyes and looked back to her bubbling concoction. 'It'll take more than mushrooms to fix this...' She lifted the spoon to her face and sniffed at the stew. She regretted her decision immediately and quickly jerked her head back, dropping the spoon back into the cauldron.  
It was then that she noticed Richard's sudden tension. He was standing perfectly still, staring hard into the blackness that surrounded them. His right hand gripped the hilt of the Sword of Truth tightly, sheathed at his hip. She rose to her feet in a fluid motion, her tight red leather Mord Sith garb making nary a sound. She already had her two red baton-like weapons in her hands. The agiel were unique weapons only used by the Mord Sith. Instead of cutting, slashing, or stabbing, they simply caused immeasurable pain upon the lightest touch. They could also break bones or take life.  
'Do you hear that?' asked Richard. Cara didn't answer, statue-like and ever observant. She moved her eyes without moving her head, and she strained her ears hidden behind her blonde hair.  
Her head swung to the left. 'That way,' she stated calmly, beginning a steady march towards the edge of their dimly lit clearing.

She was a twirling blur of grace and death. Kahlan's two long knives flashed in the moonlight. Men fell like rain around her, dropping their weapons and spewing blood from their angry mouths. But these men were not normal men. They were disfigured. Some were heavily scarred, some looked like burn victims, and others looked as though they had no business being alive.  
They were banelings. Like zombies, brought back to life from a corpse state, yet unlike zombies in that they retained their intelligence and pre-life knowledge. Also unlike zombies, banelings had to kill every day lest they return to the Keeper in the afterlife.  
Three of them ran at Zedd, swords and axes raised high. The old man shouted an incantation and waved his arm, and the three men ran face first into an invisible wall. The magical force blasted them backwards and their weapons went flying.  
'We need to get to Richard!' Kahlan cried, turning her back for only a second to regard the wizard. Richard was the Seeker. Without him, the world was doomed. And she knew these banelings were here for only one reason: to keep them busy while the Keeper's other servants went after the Seeker.  
Zedd's robes flapped through the air around him as he spun around and flung his hands out to launch a devastating stream of fire against a new wave of attackers. Burning the bodies was the only way to permanently down a baneling. For without a body to return to, how would a soul come back as the walking dead?  
Zedd spun again and threw flames over the fallen banelings, burning their physical forms to ashes. 'If we go back into the forest now, we'll be lost until daylight,' he explained to his female companion. 'We have to stand our ground!'

Cara and Richard stood side by side as they peered over the ten foot ledge, Richard with his sword held out before him in both hands. The scene below was like something out of a nightmare.  
Banelings amassed like an army. It was like a sea of bodies seething and pulsing throughout and around the thinning trees. And it was loud. Each person was shouting or cursing or roaring in anger, anxiety, or adrenaline.  
Cara cocked an eyebrow as she looked at Richard out of the corner of her eye. 'Looks like the Keeper's getting desperate.'  
Richard didn't take his eyes off the enemies below them. His lack of response proved to Cara just how hopeless their situation seemed. 'We have to run,' he decided.  
'But the wizard. And the Confessor.'  
'I know...' he sighed deeply. 'I just wish we knew where they were.'  
'Hold on...' Cara took one step forward and narrowed her eyes in an attempt to see further. The sun was finally breaking the horizon and they were offered a little bit of morning light.  
'What?' Richard asked her as he tried to locate what she was seeing. Cara lifted her arm and pointed. Richard's gaze followed her finger until he also saw it.  
Somewhere in the middle of the mass of undead, something was going on. More noise was coming from that spot, and bodies were massing around it only to be repelled by some unseen force or entity. Richard and Cara looked at each other, then simultaneously bolted down the short but steep hill.

The fighting was intense. They had never before encountered such a huge force of the Keeper's servants. But Cara and Richard had been doing this sort of thing for a long time. The Seeker and a Mord Sith were not so easily felled by normal men, baneling or not.  
'We're getting close,' Cara shouted. 'I can hear the fighting.'  
'Good,' Richard growled as he slashed a man almost in half at the shoulder with a two-handed downward sweep. 'Keep fighting!'  
They continued to hack, slash, and bash their way through the crowds. A baneling came in fast at Cara from the side, swinging his claymore horizontally. She easily ducked below the slash and thrust one of her ageil into the man's gut. He froze in mid-motion, his mouth opening in a mute cry of pain as the mystical weapon touched his bare skin and inflicted the worst pain known to man. The skin around where the rod touched turned black, and black veins quickly spread out to cover his stomach. Cara withdrew her ageil and the man fell to his knees. Cara rose to her full height again and pressed her other ageil into the back of his neck. His eyes went wide, rolled back into his head, and then he fell forward as his life was taken, a second time in his case. Cara smirked down at the corpse.  
Another baneling charged in. She spun on her heel and deflected his stab to the side, moving in like a cat to his now-vulnerable side and smashing his ribs. He crumpled over and she slammed the end of an ageil into his spine. A few moments more and he was dead as well. Or rather, _re_-dead. She stood over the body and looked around with a smug confidence. The fighters were slowly learning to keep their distance from her and only to attack when prepared and cautious. After all, the ageil had a psychological effect on an enemy as well as physical, for they were feared more so than any blade, even the Seeker's.  
Just then the line of men in front of her was broken. She looked curiously to see that their unknown ally had finally reached them.  
He wore light black armor which left his pale arms bare, with bright green inscriptions and tribal designs etched across the chest. Unlike Cara, whose low-cut outift left little to the imagination, his pants were slightly puffy and not form-fitting like his torso armor. And he was taller even than Richard. He twirled a unique weapon through the air as it sliced through his opponents like cheese. It was a pitch black double-bladed sword, with a blade on both sides of the hilt, which was in the middle. He didn't even look at Cara, and she wasn't sure where Richard had gotten to since she last saw him.  
The banelings seemed to be confused for a moment, unsure of who to go after, but they eventually chose the newcomer. They surged towards him, and he briefly disappeared amongst the bodies. But as Cara watched with mild impression, they fell like flies around him, his double-blade making short work of their soft fleshy bodies. Another wave came at him but before they got close he brought his right hand in towards his chest. He formed some sort of magical hand signs which Cara didn't recognize, then swung his weapon through the air in a straight horizontal line before him. Suddenly the entire area around them went deathly silent. Cara's expression turned to that of wonder and confusion as she figured she must have gone deaf. She tried saying something but no sound came out. However when she looked around, all of the banelings around them were clutching at their ears and falling to their knees, trying to cry out in pain in the silence. Their ears started bleeding, then one by one they fell dead or unconscious. Very slowly, the sound began to return to Cara's ears, and she subtly raised an intrigued brow in the man's direction.  
Only now did he turn to face her. He looked like some sort of Reaper, standing on a hill of corpses with his terrifying weapon held casually at his side, his dark eyes regarding Cara's form. 'Impressive magic,' she spoke to him, the sound of her own voice nearly startling her after such a suffocating silence. 'But we didn't need your help. Who are you, and why are you here?'  
'I've come for the Seeker,' he answered. His voice was deeper than Richard's, but had a curious undertone to it, as if his powers over sound affected the sound of his voice.  
'Oh?' she tilted her head in a condescending way as she started to walk around him, keeping her dozen-foot distance. 'Are you here for the Seeker in a good way...or a bad way?'  
The man kept his stare locked on her form, and she could swear she detected the hint of a smirk from him. 'From where you stand...a very bad way.'  
Her eyes flashed dangerously. This man was offering her a challenge. And not just in the way of combat. She actually found this exchange enjoyable. 'I must warn you, it is my duty to protect the Rahl lineage. If you want Richard...you'll have to go through me.' Her expression was that of confidence and intrigue.  
'Interesting proposition.' He didn't back down from her cold stare. However, she thought she did notice his eyes wander, very briefly, from her face to take in her entire body. She almost rolled her eyes. All men were the same. In fact one of the Mord Siths' uniform's purpose was to make it easier to manipulate men. But there was something different about this one... 'I've gone through women like you before,' he told her. 'I haven't met one yet who can even offer me a thrill.'  
Cara's jaw almost dropped but she kept a level disposition. How arrogant this man was! And the hinted suggestion at the true meaning behind his words was not lost on her. 'Oh I think I'm more than capable enough,' she allowed herself a smirk. 'I've dropped greater men than you on their backs without laying a single strike.'  
'Cara!' Richard's voice abruptly interrupted the tense scene as he came running up to her side. She and the newcomer did not take their eyes off each other even as he slowed to a stop. 'Who is this?' He nodded towards the stranger.  
'My name is Verin,' the man answered the Seeker directly. 'I've hunted you for far too long, Richard Rahl.'  
Richard's face turned downcast. Apparently, this person was not here to help them after all. He readied his weapon. 'So you do work for the Keeper,' he practically spat.  
Verin's hard glare was hiding something. He worked for the Keeper, yes...at one time. But he'd "gone rogue" a long time ago, and was now himself hunted by the god of the afterlife, as well as those in the world of the living who he had made enemies of. None of this bothered him though.  
He twisted his wrists and the hilt of his sword came apart at the center. His double-blade split into two seperate swords, which he flipped forward so that they were pointing at Richard. 'You don't need to know why I'm going to kill you. Only when.' He started to march forwards. Cara swiftly stepped in front of Richard, her two ageil at the ready. Verin did not even slow.


	2. Chapter 2

Cara was wary of the newcomer but that did not make her hesitate. She met him head on.

His blades were twirling fans with the grace Verin used them. Cara jabbed and swung. Both hits were deflected. She redoubled her assault, pressing hard, swinging and thrusting her ageil. She seemed to be gaining an advantage as she drove the other back. With every step she took forwards, he gave more ground. But only a fool would fall for such a ruse.

Cara knew she had no such advantage; it was an illusion. Verin was deflecting or outright dodging her attacks far too easily. She had never met a combatant with the skill that this man possessed. She got the distinct feeling he was just toying with her. But why?

'Fight me!' she growled as she relented for a moment. Why wouldn't he just attack!

'Why fight you?' the corner of his lips twitched upwards into a small smirk. 'You are not my target, and you are no threat. You do not meet my criteria, therefore you are not worth my time.' Cara's blood boiled and she practically roared as she charged him again.

This time he did not give ground.

She thrust at his head with one of her batons. He batted it to the side and twirled on the spot, bringing his body lower and arcing one of his weapons overhead to slice the forearm of her second incoming ageil. Her attack faltered and she withdrew her bleeding arm. Before anything else could happen, the point of his second weapon was racing for her throat.

Cara was an experienced fighter. She'd seen more battle than almost anyone else. So even though she skillfully maneuvered to avoid the blow, she knew she was finished. She wasn't fast enough for him. But even as she prepared for her imminant demise, she couldn't help but admire him. He was simply...impressive.

At the last second his blade diverged to the side and only lightly cut her neck. They both froze, their eyes locked. Cara did not fear death, so she felt no overwhelming relief. However she couldn't help but smirk at him. 'Still not up to your criteria?'

'What can I say...my blade is picky.' In a smooth gliding motion he locked his swords together at the ends of the hilts.

Suddenly Richard, whom Cara had momentarily forgotten about, barreled in from the side. Verin had apparently been expecting this. He turned on his heel and swung his now-free palm towards the other man. Cara felt the same sensation of all the sound being drawn out of the air, the very voice being sucked out of her chest, a vacuum of deafening silence. And just as Richard started to swing his sword downwards, his entire body was flung back by some invisible force. The Sword of Truth flew from his grasp and he hit the ground hard. Instantly he clasped his hands to his ears and rolled to his elbows and knees. Slowly the sound started to return to Cara's ears. Verin was focused on Richard now. He lowered his palm and confidently walked over to the disarmed man, flipping his weapon in one hand. He looked down at Richard.

'It's nothing personal,' he assured him, even though Richard couldn't hear anything through his nearly-burst eardrums. He raised his blade, one point aimed at Richard's arched back. 'But it's you or me.'

His eyes went wide and his mouth opened in a voiceless scream. After a few moments he fell to his knees and his weapon dropped to his side. Cara was behind him, both ageil firmly pressed against the small of his back. She drew them back and Verin fell forward with a grunt, breathing hard. Cara kicked the unique double-blade away from him as she walked around his side, looking smugly down at him.

She smiled, 'And here I thought I wasn't a threat.' He started to rise to his hands and knees, and she slammed the butt of an ageil into his back, sending him back down. When she was sure he had blacked out, she sheathed her weapons and went to tend to Richard, who seemed to be recovering from the sound blast a little at a time.

Night had fallen and doused the land in darkness. The four had a fire going; Cara had just returned from her perimeter check to see that Verin was still not awake.

'For so much talk, he sure can't take a hit...' she muttered as she sat by the fire. Her arm was bandaged. Richard was on the opposite side of the fire; he had fully recovered, but his ears were still ringing.

'Where did he come from?' Kahlan wondered, directing her question at Zedd. The old man seemed to have an answer for everything.

It was Richard, rather than Zedd, who spoke, 'He has some sort of connection with the Keeper.'

'How do you know?' Kahlan asked him.

'Well...he didn't deny it when I mentioned it,' he replied. 'Besides, where else could he have come from? He has magic which not even Zedd can explain, and his skill in combat is beyond human.' Cara remained silent through the exchange, simply staring into the crackling flames.

'His sword and armor are enchanted,' the wizard finally spoke up, drawing everyone's attention. 'There is great magic emanating from them. But it's...foreign. I don't recognize it, and I certainly have never seen it.' Cara looked over to Verin. Her eyes narrowed.

Richard asked, 'Do you think they're what give him his power?'

'Why don't you ask him yourself?' Cara's eyes were glued to Verin's still form. 'He's awake – only pretending.'

The silent figure slowly rose to a sitting position. His hands were bound behind his back and his ankles were similarly tied. He laughed lightly. 'Your girl's got a good eye.'

Cara's hands balled into fists. Kahlan went for a knife, but didn't unsheath it yet. '"Their girl" is the one who put you in this situation,' Cara stated calmly. 'Somehow I don't think this was part of your plan.'

Verin shrugged casually and leaned back against the tree he was under. 'I don't make plans,' he answered simply.

'Oh? Then what is it you do?'

'I improvise.'

'Enough,' Richard interjected. 'Tell me why you're here. Why do you want me dead; did the Keeper send you?'

Verin's eyes remained locked on Cara for a while. It was an appreciative look. It didn't seem to bother him at all that he was in such a predicament. Finally he answered the Seeker, 'Maybe, eventually, He was planning to send me after you. But I don't think he counted on me defecting.'

'Defecting?' Kahlan repeated. 'Who did you defect to?'

Verin looked at her with a mock quizzical expression. 'I need a side to defect to?'

'You still haven't answered my question,' Richard pressed.

Verin glanced at each of the four in turn, then over to his blade which was set by Zedd. The wizard caught this and also glanced at the double-blade. What did the weapon have to do with all of this? 'I told you...because it's you, or me.'

'Why? What are you after?'

'It's not what I'm after,' he sighed and leaned his head back to stare up at the canopy of fluttering leaves above, sillhouetted by moonlight. 'It's what's after me.' The camp site was quiet for a while. Everyone waited for Verin to go on, but he said no more. In fact it seemed like he had fallen asleep; his eyes were closed.

Richard was about to get angry but Zedd put a hand on his shoulder as he looked at all of them. 'I suggest we get some rest. We can question him further tomorrow.'

'All right,' the Seeker agreed, surrendering with a sigh and a nod. 'We'll take turns at watch, like always, but now we have a guest to keep a close eye on.'

'I'll take first watch,' Cara volunteered.

The other three were in their bedrolls, asleep after an hour. Cara wandered the perimeter, but drew nearer and nearer to the smoldering firepit with every round. Now she was back in the main site, checking to make sure Verin hadn't gone anywhere. He was still leaning against the tree, face upwards, eyes closed. He hadn't budged an inch since their conversation.

Satisfied he was still "comfortable" she started to leave to make her rounds again.

'What's your name?' Verin's voice was loud in the darkness. She stopped, considering the question. Then she turned around to face him. He was looking right at her.

'I think you already know my name. You knew who Richard is.'

'True, Cara...but how else was I going to stop you from leaving?'

Cara arched an eyebrow. 'Now why would you want to do that?'

He grinned. 'So that you can bear witness.'

'Witness?' her amused look faded. 'Witness to...' Her words faltered and she started for the bound man. Only he wasn't bound anymore.

He swung his arms up and leapt to his feet. She was too late; he dove for his weapon and sliced the bonds at his ankles. She drew her ageil but to her surprise he didn't attack. He simply stood there, regarding her. Now he was the one who was amused.

'Wake up!' she firmly raised her voice. But no one stirred. Her eyes briefly flickered away from Verin to see her sleeping companions.

'They won't hear you,' Verin told her. He raised a hand and tapped his ear twice. 'This is the only place your voice is going.' He lowered his hand. 'And vice versa.' He enjoyed her look of slight frustration that she tried to hide from him. He couldn't use any kind of offensive magic against her, but she couldn't do anything about where the sound of her voice was being directed.

'Okay. It's just me and you. What do you do now?'

'Now, I take my leave,' he bowed shortly. 'Unless, of course, you want to try to stop me.'

'I wouldn't be doing my job if I didn't,' she smiled.

Verin nodded slowly, as if he were thinking about it. 'Yes...and, I suppose, I'll just attack Rahl again in the future. You ought to stop me here and now.' He shrugged and offered her a helpless look. 'What choice do you have?'

Cara's smile remained. 'What choice do I have?'

Verin took off running. Cara was already in hot pursuit.


End file.
